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Saturday, August 18, 2012

Bonnie and Clyde guns expected to go for more than $100,000 each at auction - CNN

Two guns recovered from the bodies of notorious gangster couple Bonnie and Clyde are expected to fetch more than $100,000 each, an auction official told CNN on Friday.

The Colt .45 was found in Clyde Barrow's waistband, and the .38-caliber Colt was strapped to one of Bonnie Parker's legs on May 23, 1934, when they were killed in an ambush near Gibsland, Louisiana.

"This is one of the finest Bonnie and Clyde collections you will ever see," said Bobby Livingston, vice president of RR Auction in Amherst, New Hampshire. "We expect the guns should sell anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000. But really the sky is the limit for these types of guns."

In January, a submachine gun and shotgun reportedly seized at one of Bonnie and Clyde's hideouts was sold by a Kansas City auction firm for $130,000 and $80,000, respectively, The Joplin Globe reported.

According to the website for RR Auction, the Colt Model 1911 U.S. Army pistol was Barrow's "personal pistol." When police officers searched the car Bonnie and Clyde were driving when they were gunned down, they found many weapons, including nine other Colts, but this was the one he favored, Livingston said.

An extra clip for bullets is included, along with a letter from Frank Hamer Jr., the son of one of the Texas Rangers who killed the notorious couple.

Parker's .38 was taped to her inner thigh, Livingston said.

"My father said that one reason she had the gun taped to the inside of her leg was that, in those days, no gentlemen officer would search a woman where she had it taped," a letter from Hamer states, according to the auction site.

Livingston told CNN that part of Hamer's fee for tracking and killing Bonnie and Clyde was the promise he could take some of their possessions, which he split with other posse members and police officers from Louisiana.

The auction also includes items, including his pocket watch, from the estate of Clyde's sister, Marie Barrow, a release from the auction company said.

Potential bidders can register at the www.rrauction.com, Livingston said. The live auction, which will be held September 30, will contain more than 100 lots of gangster-related items.

Bonnie and Clyde, whose legend grew larger through the years in song and film, went on a crime spree in 1932 that lasted 21 months during the height of the Great Depression, according to Britannica.com. They robbed small-town banks and gas stations throughout the Southwest.

According to the FBI's website, Barrow murdered at least 12 people, but Parker "probably never fired a shot."